STRESS FACTORS OF NURSES IN COVID DEPARTMENTS

Abstract

Objective: To define the stressors that cause the highest level of stress in nurses / technicians in COVID intensive care units (ICU) and regular COVID departments and to compare stressors between these two departments.
Methods: For the purposes of the research, a validated questionnaire on stressors at the workplace of hospital health workers was used. The questionnaires were distributed to 194 nurses/technicians, working in the COVID departments. The questionnaire consists of 3 parts; the first part contains demographic data of the respondents, the second part of the questionnaire consists of 34 questions that describe certain stress factors and are answers are offered on a Likert - type scale and the last part of the questionnaire consists of 3 open-ended questions to which respondents can add stressors to which they are exposed, which were not previously mentioned.
Results: Differences were found in the level of education regarding the length of work with COVID patients, nurses / technicians with a higher level of education worked longer in the COVID department (p=0.043). No differences were found in the level of stress between nurses/technicians working in the COVID department compared to the COVID ICU (p=0.181). Among the factors that caused the highest level of stress are: work overload, inadequate personal income, insufficient number of employees and everyday unpredictable and unplanned situations.
Conclusion: Our results indicate that there is no difference in the level of stress between nurses working in the COVID departments compared to nurses working in the COVID ICU. Due to the high prevalence of stress among nurses who work with COVID patients, it is necessary to monitor the symptoms of burnout and provide support in the workplace. According to the results of our research, there is a need to optimize working conditions and invest efforts in order to reduce the workload.